Ecotourism – A New Attraction for Vietnam

With the advantage of an agricultural country where there are arable area and thick river systems, Vietnam has by far attached special importance to developing ecological tourism and introducing many exciting ecotourism products. Besides, the country has many natural reserves, national parks and forbidden forests like Ha Long Bay, Ba Be Lake, Phong Nha Cave, Cat Tien National Park, Cuc Phuong National Park, Van Long Nature Reserve, etc. for ecotourism development.

Specifically, Vietnam is home to six biosphere reserves recognised as the world biosphere reserves by the UNESCO. In the coming time, two biosphere reserves will also be certified the World Biosphere Reserve. These are good conditions for Vietnam to develop ecotourism.

Grasp this advantage, most travel companies in the country as a whole and Ho Chi Minh City in particular like Saigontourist, Ben Thanh Tourist, Fiditour and Vietravel have built many eco-tours to meet the increasing demand of domestic and foreign tourists. Mr Nguyen Minh Man of Vietravel Company said eco-tourism makes up for 30 % of Vietravel’s tourism products. According to travel companies, up to 30 % of domestic holidaymakers and 50 % of international visitors register for this kind of tourism. Vietravel has been known to introduce eco-tourism products for the Mekong Delta region where there are very thick river and canal systems, natural sand dunes, large orchards and local cultural identities. Holidaymakers will have the chance to discover indigenous culture by boat, listen to local fork songs, explore floating markets – a typical of Mekong Delta, sightsee and enjoy fruit gardens, catch fish or visit local villages. Popular places of interests in the region include Con Phung Islet, Thoi Son Islet, Cai Be floating market, Cai Rang floating market, Phung Hiep junction and Vinh Sang farm.

However, according to Mr Man, ecotourism has been introduced for long but it has not brought in satisfactory results due to many limitations in serving travellers. Specifically, the eco-tourism must put environmental protection on top but sanitation in visiting places is not properly cared while the promotion of local cultural identities is spontaneous and unsystematic. The popularity of eco-tourism image is not impressive and thus eco-tourism products are unattractive to holidaymakers.

Therefore, in order to develop eco-tourism forms and enrich potential and attraction of this eco-tourism form, travel companies as well as localities should diversify products by expanding tours to some southern provinces like Dong Thap, Tra Vinh and Soc Trang.

Need to promote development and types of ecological characteristics such as marine ecology, forest … to exploit the potential advantages and availability. Needless to say, the popularity of unique eco-tourism forms like sea eco-tourism and forest eco-tourism needs to be focused to exploit existing advantage and potentiality.

Infrastructure for tourism development like restaurants and hotels need to be invested properly in the direction of meeting diverse needs of travellers, both luxury hotels to popular accommodations. Travel companies should create more innovative tourism products like “one-day farmer” (in Vinh Long and Can Tho), Dinh Yen mattress weaving learning (in Dong Thap) and Vietnamese traditional wedding attendance. In addition to ecological services and local cultural identities, destination localities will also need to serve the shopping interest of tourists because any source of income, regardless of its size, will contribute to the general tourism development and develop ecotourism. (VEN)

Tags: Vietnam Ecotourism, Vietnam Tourism